“How long have I been here now?” Sarah asked the next day in the library, putting down her Natural History of Creatures in the Labyrinth written a few thousand years ago by Jareth.

“Nearly six months,” he muttered distractedly, his nose in a biography of David Bowie that he had borrowed from Sarah’s room.  “Nobody actually believes this stuff, do they?” Jareth asked incredulously, his patrician features set in an expression of disbelief.  “If anyone was this peculiar, they’d get locked up somewhere wouldn’t they?”

Sarah smiled.  She loved Jareth’s grudging and bad-tempered fascination with the rock star that could be his twin.  She knew very well that he was trying to figure out what it was that she saw in him because it piqued his vanity that Sarah liked the left-of-centre musician so enthusiastically but regarded him so warily.  “I have no idea whether or not it’s all true.  I seriously doubt it.  Noone who’s been that successful for so long could really be that neurotic or bizarre I suspect,” she said sensibly.  “Besides, he got married to a gorgeous woman and had a baby girl so he can’t really be as weird as the biographers would have you believe, can he?”

“She could be peculiar,” he suggested, for the sake of argument.  Sarah just laughed.

“Have a look at her in your crystal and tell me if you think she’s peculiar,” she challenged lightly.

Jareth flicked his wrist and gazed into the crystal.  He was pleasantly surprised.  “Someone like her married that freak?” he said in mild astonishment.  “She’s a dark beauty from the African tribes?” he questioned rather quaintly.

Sarah laughed again.  “You put things in such an old-fashioned way.  She’s a supermodel.  Made herself vastly wealthy from modeling fashion and being a trend-setter.  She’s a very smart lady apparently,” Sarah explained.

“Apart from the fact she married that weirdo,” Jareth countered, darkly.

“Don’t be nasty! I keep telling you that you’re just jealous,” Sarah said complacently giving the beautiful model a last admiring look before the crystal disappeared.

Jareth chose to ignore that remark and scrunched himself further into his lovely red plush armchair to read more about his antagonist.

Six months, Sarah thought with a sigh!  She felt no closer to a decision than she ever had been.  Something had to be done.  She bit her lip and looked at Jareth’s averted face, frowning at the book as though he didn’t believe a word he was reading.  With another sigh of frustration, she wished herself back to her bedroom (so much quicker than actually having to walk anywhere!)

“I wish I could see my family,” she said, her voice tense with quiet anger.

A crystal appeared suddenly before her face and when she looked into it, she could see her family sitting around the dining room table quite clearly.  They seemed to be having some kind of party.  Sarah realized it was Toby’s third birthday party.  He had grown so much!  She smiled to see his blonde curls and big baby blue eyes.  Her stepmother was smiling down at him and her father was smiling too, but he looked as though he’d aged more than he should have in just 2 years.  The extended family was around plus some other children, probably from the neighborhood.  The kitchen was decorated with streamers and balloons and the table was groaning with unhealthy looking food.  A ghost of a smile passed over Sarah’s face.  They were fine.  She knew they would be.  They would survive quite comfortably as a family if she stayed in the Labyrinth.  Her ‘dying’ would not be a divisive event for them.

“I wish I could see my friends,” she said softly.  The crystal fogged and cleared and she saw her school friends at the movies with a group of guys.  She smiled when she saw them behaving like brats in the cinema.  They went on to a pizza parlor Sarah knew well and had a ball having a food fight until the management complained.  Even her best friend was throwing garlic bread for all she was worth.  Much to Sarah’s interest some of them had coupled off.  “Well, a lot has happened in the past two years,” she murmured.  She suddenly felt left behind and stagnant.  For the first time she resented being trapped in her current predicament.  “And I’m stuck here with a guy in tights,” she added wryly checking out her friends’ new boyfriends.  “Still, he’s sexier than any teen-age boy,” she added with a self-satisfied smirk.  Well, they didn’t appear to need her either.

“Two years away and I’m redundant,” she said quietly, blinking back tears.  “Just what I expected, no need to feel sorry for myself,” she scolded herself.

“That’s not true, Sarah.  You’re not redundant.  If you woke up again there, they’d be very glad and you know it,” Jareth said, suddenly walking through one of her walls.

“I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” Sarah snapped irritably, glaring at him.

“I know,” he smirked.  “Sarah I know you’re having difficulty making a decision and what I’m about to ask of you won’t make it any easier,” Jareth stated, standing at her window watching the sky with his hands on his hips.

Sarah stared anxiously at his back, admiring the long cape-like leather coat he wore.  The weather was cold for the Labyrinth.  The realm only had a short two month winter but the temperatures never got much below around 10 degrees Celcius.

He turned around to face her but didn’t come any closer.  “If you stay here Sarah, I want it to be as my wife,” he stated directly.  Sarah stared uncomprehendingly at him.  What that his idea of a proposal, she wondered?  “Otherwise, I’d prefer it if you went home at the end of the year,” he added, his face unreadable.

“But the curse…” Sarah began.

“Won’t be broken if you go,” he interrupted.  “Yes, I know Sarah.  But that’s my request.”

“I can always stay somewhere else in your Labyrinth, I suppose,” she mused aloud, unsure of the idea and trying not to feel hurt.

Jareth’s heart constricted at the thought.  Didn’t she know that if she stayed anywhere in his realm he wouldn’t be able to stay away from her?  He’d make some excuse to see her every day if she was here.  He couldn’t bear the thought of her being so close but so out of reach – the idea was torturous.  Better she go home where he could find no excuse to be any part of her life.

“You could do that, of course,” he said coldly.  “But I’d rather you didn’t, that’s why I made my request.”

He had no idea he’d upset her until – as on a previous occasion, he felt her emotions as though they were his own.  He turned around abruptly but she’d already gone.  He swore at the empty room and conjured a crystal.  She was on a balcony on the western side of the castle.  Two seconds later he was there.

“You’re crying again,” he frowned darkly.  “Why do you keep doing that?” he asked, exasperated and agitated.

“Go ‘way,” she sniffed miserably from where she was sitting against the castle’s outer wall.  Of course she was wretched, she thought.  Who wouldn’t be after a feeble proposal like that?  Proposals were supposed to be romantic things that happened in tandem with declarations of undying love, she contemplated with a sniff of self-pity.  Jareth had messed it up!

He came and crouched down next to her.  “What’s wrong?  What did I say?” he asked, bewildered.

“Just leave me alone!” she yelled.

He got up with an angry swirl of his coat.  “I hate it when you cry,” he said stamping his foot in fit of temper.  “You know I do!  Stop it!” he demanded with a hiss.

“Go away then and you won’t have to see it!” she shouted.

“Sarah, when you’re upset I can feel it as though your emotions are my own.  It’s very distressing,” he complained.  That got her attention.

“You feel what I feel when I’m upset?” she questioned, curiosity momentarily interrupting her pity party.  “Is that normal for you?”

“No!  That’s why I don’t like it,” he snapped, leaning against the castle wall with his arms crossed defensively.  “Why are you crying?  If the idea of marrying me so displeasing?” he asked, his face tense so that it looked carved in alabaster.

“I think it was the way you proposed that upset me, actually” she finally said with a sniff, looking away.

He glanced sideways at her averted face and felt dejected when he saw how depressed she looked.  “What did I do wrong?” he demanded, not liking the highly unusual feeling of guilt that was suddenly plaguing him.  She didn’t answer him.  “Well?” he persisted.

“I don’t know.  It wasn’t like I expected it to be if anyone ever proposed, that’s all,” she explained with a shrug. 

That stumped him for a while.  How wasn’t it like she expected, he wondered?  He started pacing up and down the balcony.  Fortunately it was large.  “What were you expecting?” he finally asked, frustrated.

“Never mind!  I’m going to my room and I don’t want you to follow me and grill me anymore,” she said firmly, then got up and disappeared.

Jareth stared at the space where she had been a moment before.  Slowly he slid down the castle wall until he sat on the ground as she had been.  Resting his elbows on his knees, he hung his head.  He felt worse than he ever had except for when she’d first refused his gift, and left him and the Labyrinth nearly destroyed.

Sarah spent the rest of the day curled up on her bed and for the first time ever, did not join Jareth for dinner.  Jareth sat in the dining room, watching her slender form in his crystal as she lay unmoving and dry-eyed on her bed.  He had no idea what to do next.